Day 3

Okay, okay, fine.  Something is definitely different about the pain.  I'm not sure that it's worse, it's just different.  What felt over the past two days like a burning has now settled into something a little more like sore muscle pain, with a lingering burn.  Of course, all of this is in my throat, and the most excruciating part of all this is that one feels the pain most acutely when either eating, drinking, or speaking.  Basically, when you're trying to express or fill your basic needs as a living creature, that's when this pain likes to rear its ugly head.

I've become a little more reliant on the pain meds.  Partly because, without them, I'm just a little too out of it to do anything productive, but not bad enough to have no desire to.  With some narcotics, the pain eases up a bit and I'm zonked enough to not worry about something else I should be doing.  

I've heard days 3 and 4 can be expected to be the worst, so bring it.  I got through today only using 1/4th of the acetaminophen I am permitted.  I can handle tomorrow and then we're looking at improvement followed by an increase in bleeding risk at the end of the week.

Surgery Day, Day 2

My awesome parents woke up to drive over an hour to the hospital and arrive before 6am.  I love them, and I was happy to have them with me.

At the hospital, I definitely felt anxious.  Would I have side effects?  Would I even make it through the surgery alive?  Would it be successful?  Luckily, the hospital I was treated at was a top-notch place.  I quickly moved through professional admissions, and then went through screening with a nurse and got changed into robes.  After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, I was brought up to the operator floor.  There, I met with my surgeon, then the nurse assisting, then the anesthesiologist.  Everyone was great, and I felt a little more at ease.  Then, suddenly, the anesthesiologist called me into the OR where everyone else was waiting.  I hopped up onto a bed and they got to work inserting an IV.  My surgeon and was very kind and encouraging as I was given a sedative.  Then, I briefly remembering them saying they were sending me off to "la la land" and I kept my eyes open for just a few moments.

Boom.  Awake again, my surgeon told me I was great and that everything went well.  I started shaking hands with everyone as they were busy just trying to get me off to the recovery room.  When I got there, I was blasted with some Demerol through my IV and felt pretty relaxed.  I was sleepy, and tried a little experiment.  I relaxed, tried to relax my airway, breath shallow breaths.  Normally, I could not induce apnea by doing this while awake, but I could feel my airway start to narrow and vibrate.  Now, nothing.  Just air moving effortlessly in and out of my lungs.  I've swollen up since then, but after my surgeon told me that my tonsils were each the size of a golf ball upon excision, I am feeling pretty upbeat.

The rest of the day was spent in mostly drug-induced pseudo-rest.  I constantly complained of pain greater than what I felt and got blasted with Demerol about six times.  I spent the night in the hospital with a very flatulent older roommate, but got a few hours of sleep that seemed deep and restful.  Too many post-surgical effects to know what things could really be like, but I think there was a bit more peace to my rest.  For maybe the first time in my life.

Today has been painful and uncomfortable, but I can't help thinking how most of what I have read online about similar surgeries must be written by utter weaklings.  Yeah, it hurts, but I just had SURGERY in my damn throat!  It feels like a bad sore throat, and I personally find the discomfort of the swelling and wanting to be ginger with these tender areas more of a problem than any actual pain.  Eating isn't fun, but I have managed to slurp down enough soup, pureed sweet potatoes, and juices to get by.  I haven't been very talkative, either, but the pages upon pages I have read about how horrific it is to recover from this surgery seem like nonsense so far.  Like I said, I had my throat cut into and golf ball sized glands removed 38 hours ago.  Honestly, I think I feel pretty good considering.

I'll keep blogging every day for the first few days of this, and I'll keep editing what I have written so far as pain meds might be clouding me a bit.

Introduction

I'll begin by noting that I am not a doctor, I am only recounting my own experiences, and any medical information I mention here is only part of my personal decision and does not constitute a recommendation for anyone else.

I had originally intended to describe my efforts to treat my obstructive sleep apnea at bulletin board associated with the American Sleep Apnea Association, but I was permanently banned from the board after a moderator began taking a personal dislike to me, editing my posts, and sending me nasty missives.   Apparently, I rumpled some feathers in that vehemently anti-surgical online community because I knew what I was talking about and spoke out against that anti-surgical bias.  When another poster on the board said their ENT had recommended surgery partly because they had extremely large tonsils, I responded that I was pursuing surgery for similar reasons and mentioned specific study that concluded tonsillectomy could be effective for carefully selected patients.  My post was quoted, dissected, and dismissed through bizarre misunderstandings by a poster who turned out to be one of the forum moderators.  For one example, I was arrogantly told that the person whose ENT recommended surgery had "never mentioned tonsillar hypertrophy as a problem."  I responded, aggressively, and called this person out for not knowing that tonsillar hypertrophy meant large friggin' tonsils.   Guess who picked a fight with me a few days later and banned me?  I don't think anyone interested in surgical treatment of their sleep apnea avoid this online community because you will be dismissed like the bad kid in town, or simply ignored until you go away.  That said, and I'll get into this further, I do think that patients and their doctors need to make VERY careful and informed decisions about who makes a good candidate for surgical treatment.  From this point on I am going to be very clear that I believe my sleep apnea results primarily from three structural abnormalities at the time of my diagnosis: hypertrophic tonsils, redundant soft palate tissue, and congenital deviated septum.

So, here I am, starting a blog in silence rather than participating in a forum as I would prefer.  I am scheduled for my second surgical procedure to treat my obstructive sleep apnea in just two days.  I intend to spend some time explaining my previous symptoms, sleep studies, attempts at treatment, and detailing this upcoming procedure and the recovery from it.  I have high hopes, perhaps too high, but I am firmly convinced that my large tonsils are the main culprits for causing my sleep apnea.  They'll be out in just a few days.


I intend on working with this introductory post further, stay tuned.